Republicans & Democrats in Their Own Words:
National Party Platforms on Certain Biblical Issues

A 124 Year History of Major Civil Rights Efforts Based on a Side-by-Side Comparison of the Early Platforms of the Two Major Political Parties

A party platform is a document produced by a political party every four years (prior to each presidential election) that sets forth that party’s beliefs and values as well as its policy positions on important issues of the day. While a platform addresses dozens of issues and sets forth that party’s vision for America, this booklet has compiled the position of the two major parties only on civil rights and racial justice issues – a subject at the forefront of American policy debates for decades.

The Democrats and Republicans platform declarations on this subject that appear in this article commence with the year 1840 and continue until the 1964 platform immediately preceding the creation and passage of the three major landmark civil rights measures in 1964 and 1965: the 24th amendment abolishing the poll tax, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. These civil rights declarations reveal how, or whether, the parties embraced the belief set forth in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights."

The following excerpts have been taken directly from the platforms and have not been altered.

The Democratic Party Platform	The Republican Party Platform
1840, 1844, 1848	1840, 1844, 1848
All efforts by abolitionists . . . to interfere with questions of slavery . . . are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences and . . . have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the union.	Republican Party not yet formed.
1852	1852
The Democratic Party will resist all attempts at renewing – in Congress or out of it – the agitation of the slavery question [i.e., will oppose all efforts to abolish slavery].	Republican Party not yet formed.
1856	1856
The Democratic Party . . . will abide by and adhere to a faithful execution of the acts . . . settled by the Congress of 1850: "the act for reclaiming fugitives from service or labor." . . . [We support] non-interference by Congress with slavery in state and territory, or in the District of Columbia [i.e., we oppose all congressional attempts to abolish slavery in any area of the nation].	As our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of establishing slavery in the territories of the United States. . . . [W]e deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislation, [or] of any individual or association of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States.
1860	1860
The Democrat Party will abide by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States upon these questions of constitutional law. . . . [T]he enactments of the state legislatures to defeat the faithful execution of the Fugitive Slave Law are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.	[W]e brand the recent reopening of the African slave trade – under the cover of our national flag, aided by perversions of judicial power – as a crime against humanity and a burning shame to our country and age; and we call upon Congress to take prompt and efficient measures for the total and final suppression of that execrable traffic.
1864	1864
The direct interference of the military authorities of the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware was a shameful violation of the Constitution; and a repetition of such acts in the approaching election will be held as revolutionary, and resisted with all the means and power under our control.	As slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of [the Civil War], and as [slavery] must be always and everywhere hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete [elimination] from the soil of the Republic; and while we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the government in its own defense has aimed a deathblow at this gigantic evil, we are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the Constitution . . . as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States.
1868	1868
The Democratic party . . . demand[s] . . . the abolition of the Freedmen’s Bureau and all political instrumentalities designed to secure Negro supremacy. . . . Instead of restoring the Union, it [the Republican Party] has – so far as in its power – dissolved it, and subjected ten states, in time of profound peace, to military despotism and Negro supremacy.	This Convention declares its sympathy with all the oppressed people which are struggling for their rights.
1872	1872
We pledge ourselves to maintain the union of these states, emancipation, and enfranchisement, and to oppose any reopening of the questions settled by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments of the Constitution. We demand the immediate and absolute removal of all disabilities imposed on account of the rebellion [Civil War] which was finally subdued seven years ago, believing that universal amnesty will result in complete pacification in all sections of the country.	During eleven years of [congressional] supremacy, it [the Republican Party] has. . . . suppressed a gigantic rebellion, emancipated four millions of slaves, decreed the equal citizenship of all, and established universal suffrage [voting]. Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political, and public rights should be established and effectually maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate state and federal legislation. Neither the law nor its administration should admit any discrimination in respect of citizens by reason of African Americans, creed, color, or previous condition of servitude.
1876	1876
The Democratic Party of the United States . . . reaffirm[s] our faith in the permanence of the federal union, our devotion to the Constitution of the United States, with its amendments universally accepted as a final settlement of the controversies that engendered civil war; and do here record our steadfast confidence in the perpetuity of Republican self-government, in absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority, – the vital principle of republics – . . . [and] in the equality of all citizens before just laws of their own enactment, . . . [as well as] in the faithful education of the rising generation.	When, in the economy of Providence, this land was to be purged of human slavery, and when the strength of government of the people by the people and for the people was to be demonstrated, the Republican Party came into power. . . . The Republican Party has preserved . . . the great truth spoken at its cradle, that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that for the attainment of these ends, governments have been instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Until these truths are cheerfully obeyed – and if need be vigorously enforced – the work of the Republican party is unfinished. The permanent pacification of the Southern section of the Union, and the complete protection of all its citizens in the free enjoyment of all their rights, are duties to which the Republican Party is sacredly pledged.
1880	1880
The existing administration is the representative of conspiracy only, and its claim of right to surround the ballot-boxes with troops and deputy marshals, to intimidate and obstruct the election, and the unprecedented use of the veto to maintain its corrupt and despotic powers, insult the people and imperil their institutions.	It [the Republican Party] suppressed a rebellion which had armed nearly a million men to subvert the national authority. It reconstructed the Union of the States, with freedom instead of slavery as its cornerstone. It transformed 4,000,000 human beings from the likeness of things to the rank of citizens. It relieved Congress from the infamous work of hunting fugitive slaves, and charged it to see that slavery does not exist.
1884	1884
Asserting the equality of all men before the law, we hold that it is the duty of the government in its dealings with the people to mete out equal and exact justice to all citizens of whatever nativity, race, color, or persuasion (religious or political). We believe in a free ballot and a fair count, and we recall to the memory of the people the noble struggle of the Democrats in the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses by which a reluctant Republican opposition was compelled to assent to legislation making everywhere illegal the presence of the troops at the polls, as the conclusive proof that a Democratic administration will preserve liberty with order.	The Republican Party, having its birth in a hatred of slave labor and a desire that all men may be truly free and equal, is unalterably opposed to placing our workingmen in competition with any form of servile labor. . . . We extend to the Republicans of the South – regardless of their former party affiliations – our cordial sympathy; and we pledge to them our most earnest efforts to promote the passage of such legislation as will secure to every citizen of whatever race and color the full and complete recognition, possession, and exercise of all civil and political rights.
1888	1888
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	We reaffirm our unswerving devotion to the national Constitution and the indissoluble Union of the States, to the autonomy reserved to the States under the Constitution, to the personal rights and liberties of the citizens in all the states and territories of the Union, and especially to the supreme and sovereign right of every lawful citizen, rich or poor, native or foreign born, white or black, to cast one free ballot in public elections and to have that ballot duly counted. We hold the free and honest popular ballot, and the just and equal representation of all the people, to be the foundation of our republican government and demand effective legislation to secure the integrity and purity of elections, which are the fountains of all public authority. We charge that the present administration and the Democratic majority in Congress owe their existence to the suppression of the ballot.
1892	1892
We warn the people of our common country, jealous for the preservation of their free institutions, that the policy of federal control of elections to which the Republican party has committed itself is fraught with the gravest dangers. . . . It strikes at the North as well as at the South and injures the colored citizen even more than the white; it means a horde of deputy marshals at every polling place, armed with federal power.	We demand that every citizen of the United States shall be allowed to cast one free and unrestricted ballot in all public elections, and that such ballot shall be counted and returned as cast; that such laws shall be enacted and enforced as will secure to every citizen, be he rich or poor, native or foreign-born, white or black, this sovereign right guaranteed by the Constitution. . . . We denounce the continued inhuman outrages perpetrated upon American citizens for political reasons in certain southern states of the Union.
1896	1896
The Constitution of the United States guarantees to every citizen the rights of civil and religious liberty. The Democratic Party has always been the exponent of political liberty and religious freedom, and it renews its obligations and reaffirms its devotion to these fundamental principles of the Constitution.	We proclaim our unqualified condemnation of the uncivilized and preposterous practice well known as lynching, and the killing of human beings suspected or charged with crime without process of law.
1900	1900
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	It was the plain purpose of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution to prevent discrimination on account of race or color in regulating the elective franchise. Devices of state governments, whether by statutory or constitutional enactment, to avoid the purpose of this amendment are revolutionary and should be condemned.
1904	1904
The race question has brought countless woes to this country. The calm wisdom of the American people should see to it that it brings no more. To revive the dead and hateful race and sectional animosities in any part of our common country means confusion, distraction of business, and the reopening of wounds now happily healed.	We favor such congressional action as shall determine whether by special discrimination the elective franchise in any state has been unconstitutionally limited, and if such is the case, we demand that representation in Congress and in the electoral college shall be proportionately reduced as directed by the Constitution of the United States.
1908	1908
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	The Republican party has been for more than fifty years the consistent friend of the American Negro. It gave him freedom and citizenship. We demand equal justice for all men without regard to race or color; we declare once more and without reservation for the enforcement in letter and spirit of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution, which were designed for the protection and advancement of the Negro, and we condemn all devices that have for their real aim his disfranchisement for reasons of color alone as unfair, un-American, and repugnant to the supreme law of the land.
1912	1912
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	No mention or racial equality or civil rights.
1916	1916
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	No mention or racial equality or civil rights.
1920	1920
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	We urge Congress to consider the most effective means to end lynching in this country, which continues to be a terrible blot on our American civilization.
1924	1924
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	We urge the Congress to enact at the earliest possible date a federal antilynching law so that the full influence of the federal government may be wielded to exterminate this hideous crime.
1928	1928
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	We renew our recommendation that the Congress enact at the earliest possible date a federal anti-lynching law so that the full influence of the federal government may be wielded to exterminate this hideous crime.
1932	1932
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	For seventy years the Republican Party has been the friend of the American Negro. Vindication of the rights of the Negro citizen to enjoy the full benefits of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is traditional in the Republican Party, and our Party stands pledged to maintain equal opportunity and rights for Negro citizens.
1936	1936
No mention of racial equality or civil rights.	We favor equal opportunity for our colored citizens. We pledge our protection of their economic status and personal safety. We will do our best to further their employment in the gainfully occupied life of America, particularly in private industry, agriculture, emergency agencies, and the Civil Service. We condemn the present New Deal policies which would regiment and ultimately eliminate the colored citizen from the country’s productive life and make him solely a ward of the federal government.
1940	1940
Our Negro citizens have participated actively in the economic and social advances launched by this Administration, including fair labor standards, social security benefits, health protection, work relief projects, decent housing, aid to education, and the rehabilitation of low-income farm families. We have aided more than half a million Negro youths in vocational training, education, and employment. We shall continue to strive for complete legislative safeguards against discrimination in government service and benefits and in the national defense forces. We pledge to uphold due process and the equal protection of the laws for every citizen, regardless of race, creed or color.	We pledge that our American citizens of Negro descent shall be given a square deal in the economic and political life of this nation. Discrimination in the civil service, the army, navy, and all other branches of the government must cease. To enjoy the full benefits of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, universal suffrage must be made effective for the Negro citizen. Mob violence shocks the conscience of the nation and legislation to curb this evil should be enacted.
1944	1944
We believe that racial and religious minorities have the right to live, develop, and vote equally with all citizens, and share the rights that are guaranteed by our Constitution. Congress should exert its full constitutional powers to protect these rights.	We pledge an immediate congressional inquiry to ascertain the extent to which mistreatment, segregation, and discrimination against Negroes who are in our armed forces are impairing morale and efficiency, and the adoption of corrective legislation. The payment of any poll tax should not be a condition of voting in federal elections and we favor immediate submission of a constitutional amendment for its abolition. We favor legislation against lynching and pledge our sincere efforts in behalf of its early enactment.
1948	1948
The Democratic Party commits itself to continuing its efforts to eradicate all racial, religious, and economic discrimination. We again state our belief that racial and religious minorities must have the right to live, the right to work, the right to vote, the full and equal protection of the laws, on a basis of equality with all citizens as guaranteed by the Constitution.	Lynching or any other form of mob violence anywhere is a disgrace to any civilized state, and we favor the prompt enactment of legislation to end this infamy. One of the basic principles of this Republic is the equality of all individuals in their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This right of equal opportunity to work and to advance in life should never be limited in any individual because of race, religion, color, or country of origin. We favor the enactment and just enforcement of such federal legislation as may be necessary to maintain this right at all times in every part of this Republic. We favor the abolition of the poll tax as a requisite to voting. We are opposed to the idea of racial segregation in the armed services of the United States.
1952	1952
The Democratic Party is committed to support and advance the individual rights and liberties of all Americans. We will continue our efforts to eradicate discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin.	We condemn bigots who inject class, racial, and religious prejudice into public and political matters. Bigotry is un-American and a danger to the Republic. The Republican Party will not mislead, exploit, or attempt to confuse minority groups for political purposes. All American citizens are entitled to full, impartial enforcement of federal laws relating to their civil rights. . . . We will prove our good faith by appointing qualified persons, without distinction of race, religion, or national origin, to responsible positions in the government; federal action toward the elimination of lynching; federal action toward the elimination of poll taxes as a prerequisite to voting; appropriate action to end segregation in the District of Columbia; [and] enacting federal legislation to further just and equitable treatment in the area of discriminatory employment practices.
1956	1956
We will continue our efforts to eradicate discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin. We know this task requires action not just in one section of the nation but in all sections. It requires the cooperative efforts of individual citizens and action by state and local governments. . . . We are proud of the record of the Democratic Party in securing equality of treatment and opportunity in the nation’s armed forces, the Civil Service, and in all areas under federal jurisdiction. The Democratic Party pledges itself to continue its effort to eliminate illegal discriminations of all kinds, in relation to (1) full rights to vote, (2) full rights to engage in gainful occupations, (3) full rights to enjoy security of the person, and (4) full rights to education in all publicly supported institutions. Recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States relating to segregation in publicly supported schools and elsewhere have brought consequences of vast importance to our nation as a whole and especially to communities directly affected. We reject all proposals for the use of force to interfere with the orderly determination of these matters by the courts.	We shall ever build anew, that our children and their children, without distinction because of race, creed, or color, may know the blessings of our free land. The Republican Party points to an impressive record of accomplishment in the field of civil rights and commits itself anew to advancing the rights of all our people regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin. In the area of exclusive federal jurisdiction, more progress has been made in this field under the present Republican Administration than in any similar period in the last 80 years. The many Negroes who have been appointed to high public positions have played a significant part in the progress of this Administration. Segregation has been ended in the District of Columbia government and in the District public facilities including public schools, restaurants, theaters, and playgrounds. The Eisenhower Administration has eliminated discrimination in all federal employment. Great progress has been made in eliminating employment discrimination on the part of those who do business with the federal government and secure federal contracts. This Administration has impartially enforced federal civil rights statutes, and we pledge that we will continue to do so. We support the enactment of the civil rights program already presented by the President to the Second Session of the 84th Congress. The regulatory agencies under this Administration have moved vigorously to end discrimination in interstate commerce. Segregation in the active Armed Forces of the United States has been ended. For the first time in our history there is no segregation in veterans’ hospitals and among civilians on naval bases. This is an impressive record. We pledge ourselves to continued progress in this field. . . . The Republican Party accepts the decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court that racial discrimination in publicly supported schools must be progressively eliminated. We concur in the conclusion of the Supreme Court that its decision directing school desegregation should be accomplished with "all deliberate speed" locally through Federal District Courts. . . . This progress must be encouraged and the work of the courts supported in every legal manner by all branches of the federal government to the end that the constitutional ideal of the law, regardless of race, creed, or color, be steadily achieved.
1960	1960
We shall also seek to create an affirmative new atmosphere in which to deal with racial divisions and inequalities which threaten both the integrity of our democratic faith and the proposition on which our nation was founded – that all men are created equal.	We supported the position of the Negro school children before the Supreme Court. We believe: the Supreme Court school decision should be carried out in accordance with the mandate of the Court; continued vigorous enforcement of the civil rights laws to guarantee the right to vote to all citizens in all areas of the country; action to prohibit discrimination in housing constructed with the aid of federal subsidies; removal of any vestige of discrimination in the operation of federal facilities or procedures which may at any time be found. We pledge the full use of the power, resources, and leadership of the federal government to eliminate discrimination based on race, color, religion, or national origin and to encourage understanding and good will among all races and creeds.
1964	1964
Ending discrimination based on race, age, sex, or national origin demands not only equal opportunity but the opportunity to be equal. . . . We are firmly pledged to continue the nation’s march towards the goals of equal opportunity and equal treatment for all Americans, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin.	Opposition to discrimination based on race, creed, national origin or sex. We recognize that the elimination of any such discrimination is a matter of heart, conscience, education, as well as of equal rights under law.